The Heart of Jade
by xShadow.of.the.Sunx
Summary: Upon the anniversary of his first team's death, Koenma sends Team Urameshi to preserve the grave site, but what they find may be more than what they bargained for...Better summary later. A Kurama story...probably.
1. Prologue

So, here's an old idea I've had rattling around in my brain for the last year or so. This is "The Heart of Jade", a Yu Yu Hakusho story mixed into one completely twisted original subplot of my own devising. This story will probably be aimed towards Kurama, but it's far from finished, meaning anything can happen. Oh, and this does have a few of my own characters in it; the rest (beside my crazy ideals) belong to Yoshiro Togashi.

=Prologue=

Jade Raya Rivers

"Reika"

Beloved Sister and Daughter

1918-1933

May the dawn light your way home

Family:

Mother: Opal Alice Rivers, age 97

Father: Onyx Coal Rivers, deceased 1945

Siblings: Emerald Lucy Rivers, age 78

Sapphire Elaine Rivers, age 76

Alexandrite Paul Rivers, age 77

Ruby Eloise Rivers, age 68

Holly Marie hunter

Beloved sister and daughter

1918-1933

Gone, but never forgotten

Family:

Mother: Carol Merry Hunter, deceased 1957

Father: Nicholas Evan Hunter, deceased 1984

Siblings: Jack Frost Hunter, age 82

Tinsel Chase Hunter, age 81

Christmas Blake Hunter, age 77

Belle Mary Hunter, age 70

The brown eyed ruler sighed as his eyes fell over two weathered tombstones, the same two stones that had haunted his very being for so many years. The tall teen stepped forward and fell upon his knees before them. "Holly," he whispered the words etched upon the rock, "Gone, but never forgotten." His eyes lost all focus; he lifted his hand and brushed the numbers that would forever remind all who saw them of the tragedy of a life taken before it ever had the chance to live. "You'd be eighty-one today," he smiled softly. He raised his hand to the stone; upon it, he laid a single yellow rose. "Your favorite," his smile faltered as his eyes moved to the stone right beside hers.

He grasped his hand over his chest and squeezed at the pain. He bowed low to the ground and held back the bay of sorrow that always threatened to overcome him at this very spot on the same date every year as he had for every year since the stones had gone up. He swallowed back tears and leaned forward to caress the name. "Jade," he whispered softly as his lips twitched into a fond smile. "I-I never told you," he confessed annually. Tears fell and sobs threatened to choke him as haunting jade eyes painted their way across his vision. In such times of silence, he could still hear her laugh, see her contagious smile.

"_Hey!" The brown eyed teen looked up from the mountains of paper that threatened to engulf him. "What?" He asked flatly, an irritation mark pulsating on his forehead. Oh, how he _loathed_ work. _

_All negativity seemed to drain right out of him. All it took was a single glance into her eyes, and he was hooked. "What is it, Jade?" He immediately sat up straight, frazzled by her sudden appearance. "You work too hard," she replied as she sat her elbows on the only open space on the colossus desk- right in front of him. "Tell me about it," he sighed, reaching for another paper from a seemingly ever-growing tower. The paper, however, was snatched away from the blonde before him. "Work goes by so much faster with help!" Before he could protest, the girl of his dreams began to process and post paper by paper, slowly, but surely, decreasing his work load._

"_What?" She inquired, having caught him staring. A light blush brushed across the two's cheeks. "Err- uh, nothing!" He stumbled over words. Jade simply smiled, adverting her eyes for only the briefest of moments before settling back with full force. Her light chuckle intermingled with his own. From that day on, her voice was the wind, the silence, his own darkness and light…_

A gust of wind scattered the order in his hair and nuzzled every inch of his uncovered flesh. And like a bell's chime, it was _her _voice that carried across the field of crosses and stones. His heart fluttered, only to spiral into an endless inferno. The memory, as if coaxed by the setting of desperation and sorrow, picked off from where it had stopped its play- the place he refused to remember until upon this very day.

"_So," the ruler blushed heavily, a million thoughts slinging through his rendered brain, "Jade, err, there's something I need to tell you." Jade looked up instantly; the pen she had been fidgeting with fell to the floor. She didn't even spare it a second glance. "Yes?" "Well, err, you see," the teen drew his hands through his hair, his eyes falling to his desk in nervousness. Jade listened intently, hanging on each word. "I-" His eyes screwed up and his fists tightened in irritation. 'It's now or never!' He'd thought. "I'm in lo-"_

"Koenma, sir!"

The ruler cursed. He glared at the compact beside him; his glare grew more intense, as the words uttered from it had matched, word for word, for what had interrupted him so many years ago. Sucking up his sorrow and allowing anger to rush through the floodgates, he picked up the object and responded.

"_Boton! I'm busy-" The blue haired English woman cringed, knowing she'd just interrupted the Prince and was surely in for a world of punishment. "Sir! It's an emergency! There's a major problem in the Makai!"_

"Send out a team, Boton. I'm busy."

"_Sir! No one else is available," Boton nervously shuffled backwards as the prince's anger began to show. "Boton-" "I'll go," Jade interrupted. She glanced at Koenma and smirked, a shyness in her eyes, "When I get back, I have something I want to tell you as well." "But-"The ruler was at a loss for words. He didn't want her to leave yet, but she was needed somewhere else, as was he. "Alright," he caved with a small sigh. Jade stood from her seat and followed Boton out. But before she left the office, she paused and turned, her hands clasped together behind her back, "Two shakes." Koenma couldn't help but return the smile in defeat. It was their way to never say goodbye. "Two shakes." With that, she pivoted around and left, not knowing that she'd never return._

"Koenma, sir?" Boton repeated. Koenma cringed at the nostalgia. "The problem, Boton?" "It's the ruins, sir!" The woman seemed to shrink; with each word said, her voice grew quieter and quieter. The Prince's heart tightened in his chest; his breath caught in his throat. His voice grew tight as he successfully suppressed all the emotion he felt coursing through his veins. Irony would have it be the same place _she_ had met her end well over half a century prior. It had to be the place he couldn't bear to see, much less set foot, be it his own or one of his operatives, upon.

Koenma was hesitant as a wall of nostalgia rushed past his senses.

_"Jade?" The ruler looked up, determination in his eyes. His grand smile fell when, instead of his blonde friend, he found a broken woman. "Boton?" He questioned. Her eyes were filled with shock and disbelief; her appearance mirrored someone who'd just been told that the world around them had just fallen down. "Boton?" His voice grew apprehensive; his eyes darted behind her to find a silent room of ogres. There was no commotion; all were standing in shock, much like the grim reaper. Koenma stood instantly, knowing taking over his body. "Who?" Boton's eyes lifted to meet his. She simply stated, shattered reality and disbelief in her words, "All of them…" His heart stopped beating. "It's all gone…" She whispered. "Everything… everyone…__gone__…"_

"…send the entire team," he ordered, "Have a second team ready to go. I want them on standby, should something happen…" Boton nodded sadly, understanding every bit of his intent. Before severing the connection, she grasped at air for words. "I-I'm sorry, sir." Koenma turned to stone. "So am I, Boton." He snapped the compact closed. He ran his fingers across the name of the one who would never know what he'd waited for so long to tell. "So am I…" With that, he stood and placed a bouquet of lilies- her favorite- atop the cold stone. With that, he turned and walked away, putting their memory behind him until they would again arise in the same place, on the same day for every year he couldn't bring them back.

He stopped to look back towards the eerie grave one last time for the year, and then stepped through a portal that would take him to his own far away world, a world, he chuckled cynically, that was so close, yet so far away from where she would never be.

_Home._

**=The Heart of Jade=**

"Boton," the prince barked as he climbed into his seat. "Has the team embarked yet?" The ferrywoman quickly nodded, "Yes! Yusuke and the others left right before you arrived. They should arrive at the ruins soon." "Good," Koenma snapped with a glare, "Now, get out of my office." Boton wasted no time. She quickly turned and leapt out of the door, closing it on her way out. Koenma glared for a second longer before sighing and picking a remote off his desk. He pointed it towards the large monitor and turned it on to find the team treading through the forests on the outskirts of a ruined city he knew far too well. Finding nothing of interest, he turned to a drawer he kept locked three-hundred-and-sixty-four days of the year. He produced a key he'd hidden in a compartment underneath his desk and opened the lock. Gingerly, he opened the wooden drawer and lifted his priceless keepsake onto his desk.


	2. Remembering Rivers

As an added note, the prologue was originally not a prologue at all and was written as one continuous chapter one; I later split the two because of the length, however. Sorry if it's a bit confusing.

_**Chapter 1**_

_ Remembering Rivers_

The ruler blew away the dust that had collected over the front cover to reveal the word "REIKA" in big, bold, black letters. As if the album were made of glass, he carefully opened the book. Upon the very first page, he felt himself be pulled into the past. He quickly found a younger image of himself in the front; Boton was on his left hugging two Brooklyn blondes- Jade and Holly. In the back row stood an overzealous George; next to him stood a human man who'd later fall from grace- Toguro. Right in front of Toguro stood a younger girl with bright pink hair and a huge smile upon her face that even her partner couldn't deny. Looking at this picture and the way her eyes glinted with admiration, it was no surprise to know that she'd one day grow to be great like the one she admired the most. To the left of them stood a brooding man with glasses and dog ears; he looked to be stubborn and unaffected by the contagious glee, but if one were to look closer, they would find a protruding smirk of pride upon his lips. And last was the tallest and fiercest of the group- a creature of darkness and light by the name of Adeimus.

All were beaming- it was the day of their lives, he'd remembered. They all looked roughed up- Holly had a broken arm, Theo looked like he'd been thrown into a blender, Adeimus had several gashes and broken bones, and Jade was covered from head to toe in bruises, band-aids, and lacerations- yet none of this effected the happiness that burst from the page. This, he beamed in pride, was the first victory- the formation of a team that contained both human and demon alike. It was a team that was destined to fail before it could start. But in all of the chaos, it was her that brought them together- the leader of Team Reika, his very first Spirit Detective team. This photograph was taken after they'd done the impossible- they'd won the Dark Tournament. Together, they'd proven all three worlds wrong.

Turning the page, he was confronted again by haunting jade eyes. This picture was taken after the tournament, right before _that_. He flipped through the course of pictures- all of the same day. It was a cool down period, he'd said, but in truth, he'd made a bet with "Reika"-the name that Jade was given in correspondence to her massive amount of spirit energy and the vast control she held over it. The bet was simple- if the team won, then Koenma would do them a favor. And the favor? The biggest party the Spirit World had ever seen. He was surprised at the request, and he had his theory- it was most likely Holly's doing. Koenma had thought the party would be stiff and wouldn't be so well received, but again, he was happily mistaken. Again, the team made a miracle happen, and the ball became the greatest night of his life.

Koenma rested his elbow on the table and sat his head upon his palm. His lips twitched into a fond smile as he reached the next page- another group photo of everyone at the party dressed up. Everyone was stunning, but none more so than _her_. She was the greatest surprise, he remembered with a chuckle as he flipped the page to find a close-up of Jade on the banister. Her face was soft and warm- a feat very rarely seen of the fighter-tomboy he'd come to know so well. Of course, the stunning photo was Boton's craftsmanship; the sneaky reaper had twittered all over the hall taking candids, but she really outdid herself on this one. Jade had arrived alongside Holly in a floor-length shimmering white dress. Her hair, which normally sat upon her crown in an intricate twist held by a solitary ribbon, was let loose and curled slightly at her waist. Her sun-kissed skin and her choice in attire made her eyes stand out like two sparkling jade jewels. Lord, she looked so beautiful, so _**free**_. Behind her, he found his own image, gazing at the blonde in awe.

Holly was also at her best that night. She wore a sapphire gown, the color matching her eyes and the spark only she could ever possess. Her hair was left identical to her cousins, as it fell straight into cascading curls; her bangs were also curled and framed her face. Her face was set permanently in the photo as a euphoric happiness that everyone in the room seemed to share. She stood next to Jade, making the fact that the two were related all the more apparent; next to the either, it was nearly impossible to tell the difference. Only a pair of haunting, unique eyes could separate the dynamic duo at that moment. He remembered how they had walked in, arm and arm, down the curving staircase to steal away the attention of every eye in the room. It was true; the two, when together, were an unstoppable duo and the world was their oyster. And it _was_ their night, after all.

Koenma flipped the page to find the last two members of the team- Thaddeus and Adeimus.

Theo leaned against the banister well out of the way, but not far enough to escape Boton's overzealous need to imprint the moments of that night. Theo was a tall, lanky man; his eyes swelled with pride, even more so in the photograph. This was one of Boton's favorites, he'd learned once he received the stack of photos, mainly because of the miracle she'd caught forever. Theo, ever the stoic demon, was _smiling_. That alongside his white tux and slicked back hair made he look like a completely different person.

Off to the side, watching the blond of his dreams, was Adeimus. His eyes, a strange black with golden irises, were glued onto her as she danced and twirled with her bubbly cousin on the dance floor. The towering tank of a man was also at his best- he wore a sharp black tux and his hair was tamed and trimmed. If not for his pointed ears, eyes, and build, he could have passed for a human.

Koenma brushed his fingers over the woman's bright, reddened cheeks. "Jade," he whispered softly as his eyes caught those haunting jade orbs yet again.

He flipped the page and felt his heart fumble in its beatings. This photograph had been what hurt him the most, but now the hurt fell deeper, but for an entirely different reason. He'd asked her to dance. Funny how such a simple gesture could end so many things all at once… Jade had accepted. The two were swept onto the dance floor, a world all its own- a place of magic. Behind them, one second too late, was a lanky, disheartened teen with soft brown hair and the saddest eyes the Spirit world would never see. If only, he'd thought, If only he'd taken that last step…

The veins in his hand pulsed under pale skin as he balled his hand into a fist; roughly, he gripped the cloth over the twisting organ in his chest. He braced and turned the page. Here, before him, were two photographs, both depicting the growing love between the two that could have been his once upon a time…

He quickly flipped, a heavy cloud of guilt threatening to strangle him. How could he wish ill upon one of his own! Especially with what really happened to him-

The next page soothed his raging soul. It was the one moment he truly wished to never forget… He remembers it so clearly as if it were just minutes ago, not the near century that had passed…

He rested both elbows onto the table and sighed comfortably as his chin fell into his palms. Koenma didn't know how long he sat there, staring at a single second captured in time. He didn't know when the ghosts of those from so long ago drifted from the page to recreate the single most important event of his life.

_"Come in," the tiny ruler grumbled as he continued to furiously stamp the never ending sea of paperwork. "Prince Koenma." The ruler looked up immediately, the stamp falling from his pudgy fingers. "Jade!" He exclaimed, his eyes wide in surprise. His alerted eyes darted over to the clock on the wall. The connection between his mind and his eyes was delayed; he blinked once. The clock struck midnight. His eyes slid back to his visitor. "Happy Birthday!" Koenma was unsure the resulting dizziness was caused by the sound level after silence, or if it was a side effect of the smile plastered across her lips. Jade shuffled forward with a rather large box talking up both her hands from the large doors towards his desk. With a gentle care she rarely ever showed, she set the box gingerly overtop the papers he was looking over. Flicking a few stray hairs back into place, her eyes dulled from glowing happiness to muddled confusion. "What are you doing?"He blinked, "Paperwork." "I see that," she frowned as she rubbed the nape of her neck in confusion, "But why? It's your birthday! You shouldn't have to do that!" He sighed, "I'm the Ruler of Spirit World; that little innuendo says that I do." "Not today!" She exclaimed with a sure nod, "__I'll_ _do the paperwork." "What! But-" "If King Enma has something to say, then he can say it to me," she announced as she grabbed one stack after another and placed the piles into boxes. "But-" "Oh!" She suddenly spoke as she shot up from her seat upon the floor beside his chair, "That reminds me!" Dropping the stack of papers in her hands to the floor, she turned to face him. "What do you want for your birthday?" _

_ The question acted as a rug being pulled from beneath his feet; it was a first for him- someone asking what he wanted- and it irrevocably stole away all of his words. His eyes fell to his desk in awe of the seemingly simple question; his chestnut orbs rested mindlessly upon the large, white rectangular box Jade had brought with her. What __did__ he want? His heart struck yet again; it screamed at him to answer her with the truth- that all he really wanted was her. But he could never voice it… he couldn't at the ball, he couldn't now. His tiny fists clenched in frustration. "I-" He choked on his words. "You know," Jade started absentmindedly, "My family's really big on birthdays, and for every birthday there's a certain tradition that we always follow…" Koenma didn't look up… oh, how he wished now that he had!_

_ Out of nowhere, he felt something soft and warm touch his cheek. The sensation ignited a storm in his veins and set his face on fire. Too soon, the warmth left his cheek, which instantly became unbearably cold. He looked over quickly to see the swish of gold and blue; his face lit up again when he caught a flash of the most amazing shade of red upon her cheeks. _

_ "Happy Birthday!" Boton yelled as she burst through the door which had been left slightly ajar; following immediately after, Holly dashed into the room. The mirror image of his leading detective threw her arms out into the air with a great big smile as she happily shouted, "Happy B-day, Princy!" The two approached his desk in a similar fashion that Jade had, with each carrying a bag in each hand. His eyes widened in surprise as Boton began to pull streamers out of the paper bag; they were throwing him a birthday party! Jade, who had wandered away from the small group, rejoined the growing group to open the white box; inside sat a massive white cake with the words "Happy 637__th__ Birthday, Koenma" written sloppily in icing. Holly chuckled as she danced over to Jade's side, "They wouldn't let us have 637 candles because it's a fire hazard, so we settled for 4, since, well, you look like a four year old." Koenma chuckled as he discreetly wiped at the water threatening to leak from his eyes as his ogre assistant, George, ducked in and out of the room to usher more of the spirit world's employees from the hall into the room. "What's wrong?" Jade whispered from his left. Koenma glanced over at her, then back quickly to the cake, "I've never had a birthday party before- or a cake for that matter." Holly nearly dropped the lit match in her hand into the cake. The only two humans in the room gaped in horror at the revelation. _

_ "MY LORD!" George yelled out as he burst through the door after rounding everyone up; the ogre had in one hand a bottle of wine and in the other several bags of food. Tears began to fall freely from his eyes as he skipped forward, "HAPPY BIRTHDAY, Lord Koenma!" Koenma was so filled with disbelief and happiness that he didn't even bother to shout an insult about the crowdedness of the room or for having beverages and food in his office. "Make a wish, Koenma," Jade chuckled as she joined her cousin's side across him. _

_ He wasn't sure how long he'd stared at the bright flames that adorned the show of affection. He didn't realize that his heart was beating faster than normal, nor did he realize that his hand had slipped to his cheek in hopes of finding something there. His eyes fluttered shut in hopes of his deepest desire, his most desperate wish coming true. Slowly, his lips parted and his breath left his lungs to extinguish the lights before him…_

"Koenma, sir!" He snapped to attention and quickly closed the book, returning it to its hiding place right as the blue haired reaper stepped into his office. "What is it Boton," he asked, his anger having been swept away in a single instance of nostalgia. "Sir, they've reached the border to the ruins," she spoke, careful not to say something that could offset his anger. He reached down and picked up the remote lying on his desk and clicked a button. In response, the large screen across him light up with color to reveal his team on the right course. His fingers danced across the pad making the screen zoom out to reveal the direction in which the detective was heading. "The Aquadon Ruins…" He whispered. Boton, seeing the sadness in his eyes, left quietly.

The broken buildings, the battered earth, the silence- all of it seemed to morph before his very eyes. The shambles of rock seemed to lift from the ground to find its proper place in a structure; the scattered plates of earth and the dead vegetation seemed to suddenly revive into luscious greens and hues of every color. The silence, all in one foul swoop lifted like a veil and filled the room with life and noises one would find in such a thriving port city…Aquadon.

_"The demon port?" Theo retorted with a snort. "Why would we go there?" _

_Koenma sighed, defeated, "There's been a hiccup in Spirit World management. I know its meager work compared to previous cases you've taken, but, quite frankly, Spirit world's overbooked as it is. We don't have a single reaper to spare for this assignment, and our only option is to send you guys out." "Um?" Holly raised her hand curiously, "Are we getting paid?" Koenma sighed again, "Yes, Holly, you will be paid." "Alright! I'm in!" She chirped as she pumped a fist happily into the air. Theo grumbled as he pushed his glasses up the base of his nose with his middle finger, "Better be paid quite _handsomely_." "Any other concerns or objections?" Koenma asked flatly, serving a dead-panned stare to every occupant in the room. Adeimus shrugged. Jade, seeing all of the actions, voiced the answer, "We'll take it." Koenma sighed in relief. "Good. So here's the rundown of the mission. Like I said, it's very simple…"_

"And it was supposed to be," he whispered forlornly, returning his precious bound treasure again to his desk. Still guised as the man he always wanted her to see, to love, he flipped to the page that depicted the screaming halt of the spirit world.

The pages were clustered with overlapping photographs and newspaper articles from the human and demon world alike. Headlines in bold black letters splashed across the pages, reading: "NOTHING LEFT OF PORT CITY" "HUNDREDS MISSING, QUESTIONS LEFT UNANSWERED" "WATERS SWALLOW CITY WHOLE". The headlines took all three worlds by storm, and left all three worlds speechless. They were left without answers, and because of the predicament and the lack of evidence, they probably never would. In a single night, the Makai's greatest pride, a city that attracted both demon and human alike, disappeared without a trace- an entire city! And out of every city in every world, it had to be fate's humor that the city where he'd sent _her _just happened to double as their gravesite. Koenma flipped the page and felt his strained image crumble, just like the stone blocks in the photos before him.

Seven days. It took seven days for the tide to recede after the merciless waters had claimed the city and all who held ground there. On that seventh day, the world stopped as kings, rulers, families, peasants, businessmen, all gathered on that barren ground to stare in baffled wonder upon what once was a thriving city so full of life.

Koenma flipped to find the photos a reaper of his- he couldn't recall the name, and probably never would- had taken of the scene. All around was nothing but silence, he remembered; everything in the photo was still, much more so than even a photo could reveal. The skyscrapers and buildings had fallen to mere rubble; if any still stood (which some did), they were distorted by the pressure of the elements and dulled with a thousand years of time. The greenery that had once made the city beautiful was nowhere to be found. All that littered the broken streets were remnants of the sea. The once proud, paved roads were reduced to gravel, most of which was carried out to sea by the currents. The docks were twisted into distortions that only a massive torrent of angry watery barrages could achieve.

And in the silence stood a single man, staring across miles and miles of solitary land. The silence was deafening, he'd remembered. The roaring silence of abandoned streets and broken, empty buildings drowned out the rumbles of the rolling thunder. Silence… the word described every witness that came to stand on that cursed grounds… the grounds that had been swallowed by the darkness of endless sea… the grounds that returned, but with something missing…

_"My god," the brunette whispered, shock tightening his ability to breathe. His eyes swept over every inch of rubble, all in the hopes of spotting single face, a corpse, a lock of golden hair… His eyes failed him, and he fell to his knees. "W-where… are all of… the people?" The Ruler's eyes began to blur and darken as tears and unconsciousness began to creep upon him. "Koenma, sir!" An ogre stumbled, only to fall beside his liege. "Wh-where is… the team? Where did everyone go, sir?" The teen's brown eyes lifted to the blackened water at the wrecked city's shores. The only word that could fall from his lips was a word he would forever remember as being a haunting reminder carved into a weathered stone. "Gone…"_

Heaving a burdened sigh, he lifted his glistening brown eyes towards the large screen across from him. The chocolate orbs latched onto a teenage boy, who in more ways than naught resembled his most precious memory, the legend that he'd never have again. "Please, Yusuke," he whispered, his façade falling to reveal the child he truly was underneath. Small beaded tears formed around the corner of his eyes as the said windows to his soul fell open to reveal what was held inside, "Please, be safe…"

_Please, _He thought as he flipped to the last page, a snapshot of two identical stones bearing the names of two people he loved so devoutly, _Please, not you too… _One single drop of water fell onto _her_ stone. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't stop the sea of his tears from drowning all that he had left- a grave remembrance and a heavy promise weighing down upon his fragile heart.

"_Jade," he whispered to the stone, disregarding the smell of fresh dirt and the freezing cold temperatures the snow brought down upon the night. Koenma leaned his forehead against the hard rock and whispered, as if in the ear of a lover, "I'll never forget…"_

"Please, for all our sake," he spoke to the unresponsive screen, "Don't become another victim, Yusuke…"


	3. City of

**NOTE: Here's a new chapter of "The Heart of Jade"; bear with me for these next few chapters. The each chapter is told from a single character's point of view and their individual experience and end differs according to their personality. Again, bear with me; it will most likely be a bit confusing, but I'll try to clear it up as much as possible afterwards. **

_**Chapter 2**_

_ The City of_

_Achoo_!

"Bless you."

"Gah! This is stupid!" The brunette with slicked back hair and an irritated scowl yelled aloud as he swatted away yet another thick branch of greenery. The teen sneezed again and angrily wiped his sleeve over his nose. His chocolate eyes narrowed as he spoke half to himself, and partly to his three companions following his steps.

"Hn, for once, I agree with the detective," a shorter figure, a male, grumbled as he appeared briefly next to the group. Once he'd said his peace, he quickly swept back to the tree branches, his own personal route, in a flash of blurred black.

"Hey! Urameshi!" A tall teen in a blue jump suit with bright orange hair (that resembled the style of Elvis) called out as he, too, battled for passage through the heavy foliage. "Why are we here- wherever we are- again?" Yusuke, the leading teen wearing the bright green jumpsuit, huffed, irked to silence. Noting the boiling anger, the last member of the team spoke up in order to avoid an inevitable dispute, "It would seem that there's been a breach upon the place where we've been called to go. Koenma said that there's a rogue demon that could become a threat to the grounds we're headed to- mostly likely Spirit World protected land, which is rare, meaning that this place is of high importance." "Meaning," Yusuke barked towards the teen who posed the question, "that we go in, find this demon, and kick it's ass." The other teen who answered, an older boy with long crimson hair and Chinese-style fighting clothes, only sighed and continued to hack at the overgrowth of plants with a weapon, a whip of some kind.

"So," the head detective, Yusuke, asked after a short lapse in time, "What exactly _is_ this place?" His mood lifted slightly as the growth's density began to thin. Running out of viable trees, the black-clad teen in the foliage leapt down to the ground with a ruffle of his cape. His ruby eyes narrowed unhappily as he answered monotonously, "It's a graveyard- a _cursed_ land that even demons try to avoid. Why any demon would come here of their own free will, I'll never know." "Gr-gra-graveyard!" Orange froze in his steps as he grew suddenly frantic. His face surrendered to blue and the hair on his neck and arms stood straight on end. A shiver rocketed down his spine and his foot stopped mid-step. "E-eh, Hiei, err, what exactly happened here?" The small fire demon's lips twitched upward as he, too, came to a standstill. His bloody eyes turned and trained on the shaking human. The small twitch of a grin grew larger, "No one knows for sure. Some stories say that the sea swallowed the entire ground whole; some say that there was a rogue demon and a massive massacre. No survivors, naturally." The orange haired teen cringed and turned, "Er, I- I, uh, you guys don't need me! Um, I think I forgot to let Eikichi outside- see ya!" "Oh, no you don't, Kuwabara!" Yusuke quickly reached out and grabbed the fleeing teen by his collar to pull him back to the group. "You freakin' coward! Besides, we're in the middle of the freakin' demon world! How were you planning on getting the hell out of here?"

"Hiei," the red head sighed as he stepped in to break the quarrel, "was not quite telling the truth, but he wasn't exactly telling the truth either." "What'd yah mean, Kurama?" Yusuke asked, curiousity and an immunity to ghost stories becoming all the more apparent. "So," Kuwabara muttered as he stepped away from Yusuke, "did what shorty say really happen?" Kurama frowned, his calculating emerald orbs searing with knowledge and a hidden tragedy. "I'm afraid so," he retorted, slipping his hands in his pockets as he began the trek to their destination once again. The rest of the party followed.

"Where we're going- I believe that it's the Aquadon Ruins. It makes since; that _would_ be the place that the Spirit World spends most of its time protecting and surveying." "Ruins?" Yusuke muttered as he kicked at a rock absentmindedly, happy to be free of an entanglement with the greenery, but not quite content with still having to travel the trail. "Why would that be important?" "Baka," Hiei muttered as he looked away from the group in hopes of finding an alternate route away from them, "Do you know nothing of history?" "Hey-" "Hiei," Kurama interrupted, "That's enough. There's no chance of knowing about that… _tragedy_. I know because I was Youko at the time; you know because you'd probably heard the tales here in demon world." "What story?" Kuwabara raised the question the only two humans in the group were thinking.

"See for yourselves, fools," Hiei grunted as he stepped into a mesh of dead trees, all clustered as if to act as a gate to a world no one should ever have to face ever again. Curious, the trio followed suit and entered the foreboding barrier.

"What's that sound?" Kuwabara whispered, clinging close to the group in fear of drifting away into the darkening forest. Yusuke, who walked beside him, replied with a frown, "I think it's the ocean…" Kuwabara's footsteps halted again. "What is it now, Kuwabara. You afraid of the ocean, or something?" Yusuke muttered, his scowl deeping at the nervousness he saw in his friend's eyes. "What is it?"

Kuwabara's lips fell to a distorted scowl. His eyebrows twitched, much like the rest of him, and his mouth quivered. Again, a slight blue tint crept across his features. "T-the sc-screams…" He grew quieter to strain his ears. "Urameshi! Someone- a girl- is in trouble! We gotta help!" Immediately, the honorable man stood tall and raised his fist to the sky in determination. "Wait for me! Kuwabara will save you!" He shouted with a lop-sided grin before bursting from his freeze out the other side of the thick tree barrier. "Eh, I didn't hear anything," Yusuke muttered as he shoved a pinky into his ear in hopes of making the action produce the sounds he's missed. "Nor did I," Kurama added, already following the troublesome human of the group.

A high pitched burst the sound barrier as soon as the team crossed from the demon realm to a world all its own, a place long forgotten and abandoned by time and logic. "The-" Yusuke's words were lost in the breeze from the crashing black waves onto the sand and stones of what used to be. Before them was a vast, broken city of crumbled lives and stone. For miles along the shore, rock and old remnants of the past littered the sand and met with the receding tides. "Th-this place…" Kuwabara, who stood only a foot or so away, stuttered as he looked every which way in paranoia, "I'm getting a bad vive; like something really bad happened here- like something bad is _still_ going on here…"

Kurama's eyes narrowed almost sadly; "I believe that you're, unfortunately, correct, Kuwabara. This place, these ruins, used to be a thriving city for demons and humans alike. And, as you've surmised… something did happen. Nearly a century ago, this very city disappeared, and with it…" Yusuke caught the small glint of something spark in the fox's emerald eyes and noticed the slight clench of his fists as he spoke, "When the city resurfaced a few days later, after an unfortunate turn of the weather- a cyclone, a tsunami, no one can say for sure- but there was one mystery, one baffling detail that no one could seem to find the answer to…"

"All of the people were gone," Hiei finished, glaring daggers at one building after the next. His eyes narrowed suspiciously as shadows danced after his own sight and hopped from wall to wall. "Then, just like that, the city disappeared again. The ruins only resurface once every decade when the tide recedes," Kurama added, whatever was in his eyes, having gone away.

Kuwabara shrieked.

"What is it now, you fool?" Hiei barked, his temper already shot. The teen, however, was too deterred to speak, he could only point frantically at the source of his fright. Three other pairs of eyes followed along his line of vision. "What the hell is that?" Yusuke frowned, squinting to see into the distance. He blinked as if the image were a work of his imagination.

The image was faint, but in the distance a luminescent light began to glow under the ocean at the shore every time the waves met the sand. The tide began to advance upon the sand and the small light, too, began to creep further to the shore. After a few cycles of waves, the tide began to recede, but the light did not. Instead, the anomaly rose from the watery confinement.

"A firefly?" Yusuke guessed as to the identity aloud. The orb of light hovered over the ocean, as if in wait, before slowly fluttering to touch down on the sandy beach. As soon as it did, the light began to morph into something… almost human. "W-what is _that?_!" Yusuke shouted, falling down in surprise. Kurama and Hiei tensed, but did not make a move. The red head's eyes narrowed at the spectral being, as the light fanned out in rays to create arms and legs, and wisps drew from a newly formed head to create the illusion of floods of hair. "I'm not sure," Kurama answered truthfully, "but if it's come from this place, then it can't be a good thing."

"Th-there's more," Kuwabara stuttered as he drew back behind the group; his face fell into all seriousness and sorrow induced pity filled his eyes, "I can hear 'em. They're all scared of something." Like Kuwabara said, more stellar colored lights began to appear; indeed, thousands came to litter the ocean line, and as each one crashed onto the shore, a figure appeared in their stead. Kuwabara's eyes widened and he took a few more steps backward, "Hey- uh, guys! T-they're saying that we need to leave because this place is cursed!"

The red headed demon's eyes narrowed; he reached back into his long tresses and produced a rose in his grasp. With a flick of his wrist, the flower morphed into a long, thorn-covered whip. The other demon instantly pulled out a sword from his cloak and held it at the ready. The detective raised his hand and cocked it like a gun as his eyes darted from one glow-ball to another. Kuwabara, however, only flinched; then, as if hearing something important, his muscles tensed as he strained to hear it.

The first glowing light, the first orb that came from the sea, seemed to solidify as it began to move forward. "H-hey!" The lead detective yelled, his pointer finger aimed directly at the form, "Don't move!" The light stopped upon the command; two eyes began to take shape.

"She's saying that we have to leave," Kuwabara voiced for the spirit who had long lost her own. His eyebrows furrowed as he struggled to make out the words only he could hear. "She's saying that…something about the ocean swallowing the curse…" Kuwabara frowned, "I can't understand it anymore. I think she's speaking some different language." Yusuke's hand fell as he frowned, perplexed. "Why are they just standing there?" He asked, staring down the row of kindred spirits. Kuwabara jumped back in surprise. "What happened?" Yusuke added, turning towards his friend intently. Kuwabara's lips parted, open and close, for a few minutes as he tried to find the words; his eyes focused on the leader of the ghosts. "S-she's singing…" He whispered, his eyes widening as a forlorn silent melody filled his ears.

"Dude, are you…crying?" Yusuke spat out, shocked at his friend's behavior. "Shut up, Uremeshi!" He shouted in between sobs, "You would be, too, if you could hear her!" His eyes fell back upon the leader, who had not moved since being asked not to. "It's so… sad," his voice fell flat as he was drawn into the silent music.

"We need to leave," the wisest, Kurama, spoke, breaking the tension in the group. "What about the demon?" Yusuke asked nonchantly as he glanced at the red head. "Forget about him," the red head spoke emotionlessly. Yusuke noted the man's clenching fist; when he saw the drops of blood leak from broken flesh, flesh he'd torn by the pressure of his nails against thin skin, he knew something was wrong. Yusuke followed the red head's deadly glare to the water. He blinked.

"It's receding," the fire demon added as he sheathed his sword, "That means that this entire place is about to be taken back to the sea. The fox is right. We should leave; the sea will take care of the rest." The fire demon turned to leave. "I guess," the detective muttered, scratching his head at the turn of events. He, too, turned and began to retreat back to the forest. "W-wait," Kuwabara called, seeing his comrades leave, as he turned to follow, "Wait for m-" Kuwabara's outstretched hand fell to his side as his head lolled and his features fell to shadow. Kurama, the last to attempt to leave the accursed place, stopped at the human's side. "Kuwabar-" His friend's head snapped up instantly, but his eyes, his eyes were dazed over and the irises were much larger than they were not seconds before.

From his lips spilled not his, but the voice of another.

"_When_ _the ocean cries,_" the dark, old gravel voice of a woman fell from his mouth. The red head's eyes widened. Kuwabara, or the something that had possessed him, turned to face the red head; faster than the red head could process, his wrist was ensnared by the palm of the intruder disguised as his friend. "_The memories will live on,_" she continued, "_and will live forever unto this cursed ground…_" Tears slipped from the blank eyes, "_she tried to save them, but another could not let them go…_" The faint sound of singing reached the red head's ears; out of the corner of his eye, he saw his friends turning back to see what was happening. At the same time, he saw the glowing figures begin to move forward past the frozen figure, the leader. The tightening grip of his captor brought him back to his current situation. Faintly, he could make out different features upon his friend's face until all he could see was the spirited face of an old woman, a gypsy woman with a forlorn, weathered face. "_Save her, save us all,_" she whispered as her image began to fade, "_The answers lie… within the heart-"_ Before she could finish her fortune, the face and eyes faded away as a sudden lurch of the sea recalled it like an opposing side of a magnet; in an instant she was gone.

"Kurama, Kuwabara- hurry it up!" The detective yelled.

Kuwabara blinked. Noticing he was latched onto his demon friend's arm, he quickly reacted by tossing the wrist aside. "The heck?" Kuwabara shouted, grabbing fistfuls of hair, "When'd I get over here?" "Let's go," Yusuke reminded the two. In response, the two nodded and turned towards the forest.

"It's too late, you bakas," the red eyed demon muttered, irritant, as he stood before the pathway. "We're stuck because you're all a bunch of fools." The team stared hopelessly at the line of trees and the disappearance of the only entrance and exit to the forest.

"Hey," the lead detective muttered aloud, his fingers twitching at a sudden revelation the rest of the team had failed to notice, "Were those buildings there before?" At the notion, all three members of his team turned around to face the ocean- all found a surprise upon the white beaches.

"So," Kurama whispered to himself, his eyes narrowing considerably in calculated consideration, "It would appear that the rumors are more than a twisted tale of the truth." "Eh?" Kuwabara squeaked, as he peered in every direction, "Where'd this city come from? And where the heck are all of the souls?" All four stared over the twisting images of reconstructing buildings and roads. Before them, crumbles of ruins twisted upward from the sand to form twisting spirals and elongated skyscrapers- all buildings that had once stunned both the human and demon world upon its construction so many years ago. The remnants of an ancient civilization gave birth to docks and floating shops and homes that seemed to hover or float right across the water straight into the bay. The broken gravel and scattered stones beneath their feet all began to shake as a new road replaced the beaten path through the city. Dead, barren trees that surrounded the edges of the city were revived with a single gust of wind that seemed to bestow upon them a dress of autumn color. The silence was the last. The deafening silence that had cloaked the ruins into a dome of forgotten time broke like a levee in a hurricane; a loud boom sent a wide-spread blast of sound across the sea and land, and succeeded in knocking the Spirit World's detectives off their feet. Like a chain reaction, birds leapt from the sea with a saddened cry as they flapped within an inch of their lives to escape the waters that had enslaved them for so many years. And then, the waves followed suit.

"Get down!" Kuwabara yelped as he leapt to the ground and covered his head. Seeing the oncoming wave, the rest of the team stared on in shock. "Hurry!" Kuwabara yelled as he tugged the detective down by his sleeve. The detective reluctantly complied when he saw the two demons fall as well.

The wave of blue wisps passed over the prepared four and smashed into the trees; at their touch, the trees began to bloom all the more, as if they were reverting back a few decades. The wisps bounced off of the foliage and twisted back into the city. But in their return, the wisps fell to touchdown on the silver road. All around them shouts of chaos and terror echoed throughout the city as feet fell into a run along the roads. "Whoa!" Yusuke shouted when young woman materialized right over his hand. He moved the appendage quickly and leapt onto his feet. "What the hell is going on!" He continued, staring in awe at the wall of water growing in the bay and the panic it stirred in all of the people, all of which had appeared at the drop of a dime.

"_Get them to higher ground!_" A female voice sounded right next to the detective's ear. In surprise, he jumped with a yelp and turned, his finger cocked at the figure as if he were pointing a gun. What he found was the semi-translucent figure of a woman with light blonde hair and the most stunning, passion-filled eyes he'd ever seen. She wore a white, sleeveless button-down dress shirt collared by a loosened black tie and a long black skirt that fell down to the soles of her black-laced, knee-high boots. A long slit down either side of the material from mid-thigh down revealed a pair of black shorts underneath. Her light blonde locks fell to her back in waves and her figure sported a number of injuries from her face to her legs. And, he mentally berated himself for Keiko's sake, she was beautiful.

Upon her command, two people- a girl who could almost pass as identical to the first, and a man who belonged to some class of demon (a dog, perhaps) nodded in response before taking off towards the trees, ushering one panicked soul after the next there on their way. The girl, the "leader" unanimously, turned to a tall man who stood calm amidst the chaos and violent screams around them. Her eyes instantly softened. "_You can't save them all,_" he frowned, his arms and lips seemingly painted forever in one position. The girl smirked wryly, "_But I wouldn't be myself if I didn't try, now would I?_" The corner of his lips lifted slightly; he nodded in affirmation of a silent decree, "_I'll cover the west._" "_And I,_" she chuckled, "_the east._" The last they saw of the girl was the turn of her solute as she raced towards the stacking wall over the bay. But she stopped, and hesitated before turning back to shout something to her companion, "_Two shakes!_"

A chilling wind blew out from the stacking sea to caress the back of his neck; the temperature of his skin plummeted with the breeze's wintry kiss upon his skin. The small black hairs on the back of his neck and arms stood on end as a fading voice spoke so sorrowfully, yet so strongly. Each word tickled the inside of his ear as the ghost retold the tale, a tale only he could hear. "_When the ocean cries,_" the voice, most definitely a female, began; he felt a soft tug at his attention towards the waves piling so high that even the blazing sun in the sky was swallowed. He strained his ears, for reasons he later would not be able to explain, and he listened, a first for the punk delinquent. Past the screams, past the roar of anger from the ocean, he could have sworn that he could hear something; something so sorrowful, like a primal cry from the depths of Mother Earth herself…

A series of soft, melancholic notes were hummed in his ear; the sound, without his realizing it, matched the sound coming from the ocean. Without a doubt, as the hum turned to words, he'd discovered the reason for Kuwabara's tears. It was this song, the ballad of the ocean that his friend had heard, and it was _her,_ the leader of the spirits with blonde flowing hair, an attitude to match his own, and the most passionate soul he'd ever seen any human possess, that now hummed in his ear.

"_The memories will live on,_" she spoke against the hum of the ocean receding further and further in distance from the shoreline as it grew taller than the skyscrapers of the city. His eyes scanned the frightened occupants of the doomed city as they scrambled within an inch of their lives, all striving for a common goal- to live, to survive this one single night in hopes of seeing the light of day once more. Small, fragile hands slid onto either of his shoulders as if someone behind him were holding onto them like a lifeline. "_And will live forever unto this cursed ground…" _His eyes never left the faces. This city was a perfect blend of fear; no one was different here, at this time, at this place. Child, man, woman, demon, human- all were equals before death. Not one, in the end, was held higher than another; the strong would not survive over the weak, just as a full grown man would not survive over a new born infant. All of them would die, as equals, and there was no force that could change that.

The fragile hands gripping his shoulders tightened to the point where he believed that he might lose all feeling in both of his arms from a lack of blood flow. Her hands began to form from nothing into the shape created with the same soulful blue he'd witnessed hovering over the ocean and sand. Her voice crumbled as she struggled so hard not to fade away, to finish her story so that she might change that night by sparing even one life from the terror of what was to come; "_She tried to save them…"_ Peach tinted fingers released his left shoulder and rose like a compass that only pointed in one direction. At the end of her direct, he found the struggling blonde he'd admired not minutes age. Her eyes were bursting with the flames of determination; he wished to chuckle at how serious she'd been when she'd spoken to the man earlier, but he couldn't find his voice, nor could he make the move to search for it.

The waves finally gave way to gravity and began to crash into the sea, into the city. Buildings built upon the water crumbled like paper under the pressure of millions of gallons of water. Torrents splashed and rode the sides of buildings to create whirlpools that would engulf even more buildings, even more people. "_She tried to save them_," she repeated, dropping her hands to stand right beside him; her sad jade eyes stared out, shining with more than the world could save. The girl in the streets turned after pushing a stunned straggler to run for higher ground to come face to face with a once great city falling into ruin right before her eyes. Her hands fell to her sides as she stared in awe as the treacherous inferno of water drew closer. The tall man she'd loved ran to her side and yanked her arm, attempting to pull her away from the path of destruction. A soft, sad smile fell upon both versions of the same person as their lips moved in sync to recite the same line, but with both meaning two entirely different things, a feat that he wouldn't realize until much later, when it, too, would be too late, "_but another could not let them go…"_

Heavy rain beat down upon his skin as the buildings only yards disappeared, taken by the sea. The last thing he could see of the two were the joining of two more to make four, and then a bright flash of cyan light. The waves engulfed the dome the light created and continued in its lust for more destruction. Her lips parted for her last words as her image began to blur into something darker, into something not _human_. "_The answers lie within the heart…" _Her words became harder to hear as water began to crash into his legs, as it slowly rose in volume up the length of his body. Her image fluttered away as it melted, captured, into the water. Her voice still lingered, however, where her body could not; "_…within the heart of __Jade__." _Like all those he'd seen slowly eaten by the anger of nature, he, too, fell victim to the fate of those ensnared in its web of destruction.


	4. The Finding

_**Chapter 3**_

_The Finding_

"_Detective!" _

Hiei, the most aggressive of the four, snarled as he released his weapon, a katana, from its bindings. His angered shout woke the dazed teen from whatever world had stolen his attention from reality; as if by pure instinct, his body propelled backwards, away from the swinging club that had nearly taken off half of his face. _A fool's luck_, Hiei sneered. How else could he describe it? Only a fool would fail to notice the noisy attack of a colossus golem, and only a fool would have the fortune to survive it.

Sometimes, Hiei began to wonder if aiding the detective was really the better deal. At the moment, Reikai prison was looking rather tempting.

With a grunt, Hiei analyzed the demon. He couldn't be a hundred percent certain, but he was willing to bet that the towering demon created from an array of stones before him was a golem. That meaning it was a big, stupid chunk of rock with a temper. It also meant that someone else had breathed into it life; that, someone else was pulling the mindless creature's strings.

Hiei glared at the nuisance. If there was one thing he hated more than the detective, it was the annoying idea of fighting a mindless puppet created by a coward. He'd thought the same thing when he'd fought all of the zombies at the Saint-beast's castle. He was just as bored then as he was now.

With a grunt, he sheathed his katana and stepped back, crossing his arms, deciding to let the detective have this fight. Hiei's crimson eyes watched as the detective dodged left to right, successfully dodging the heavy mindless punches that the golem unwaveringly threw his way. Hiei found his eyes narrow as he watched the detective blur, only to reappear behind the surprised demon. _He's gotten faster._ Hiei frowned at the discovery; his fist clenched as he wondered how much he'd improved. Yusuke once again gained the upper hand; sneaking up behind the giant moving rock, he cocked his finger into his signature gun-like stance and smirked coyly as a bright blue light formed at the tip of his index finger. A large ball of crackling blue spirit energy grew quickly in size and within seconds the massive bullet was shot. The entire left side of the beast was obliterated into pebbles upon impact.

Hiei's eyebrow twitched. Not only was he faster than he was just weeks ago, but now he was much stronger as well!

"It would seem that Yusuke has improved," a light-hearted chuckle caught his ear. He felt his eyebrow twitch again. He didn't need this right now. What he really needed was a _challenge_, not a half-assed errand issued by a ruler whose best friend was his binky. "Go away, fox," he found himself grunting, pushing the uninvited spectator away from him by sheer power of a foul mood.

The red head, who'd also chosen to leave the simple fight to the detective, stepped up beside him. Hiei glanced out the corner of his eye to find his companion's emerald eyes calculating. His eyes followed his line of sight past the rejoicing humans, over the dead demon, and back to the sea. He frowned; his friend voiced their shared thoughts, "The sea has ceased receding. I fear that we may be in over our heads for this one." Hiei's grimace deepened. The fox was right. The sea, at that very moment, was a ticking time bomb, and in any number of seconds, it would detonate.

Hiei turned to face his oldest acquaintance, "How bad?" Did they have a chance? The fox's eyes hardened, "The city will be underwater. I fear that may include us as well." Hiei grunted. This is just what he needed- to be trapped under the sea, to die with two human idiots and a nosy fox. Hiei glared at the two humans, who now headed back to regroup with them. It was all their fault. If they'd hurried it up, then he wouldn't be in this predicament. He momentarily considered killing them and then using their corpses as a raft in the oncoming collision of earth and sea, but he decided against it. He didn't want to reek like human idiot.

"Any ideas?" He voiced as the two humans fell into hearing range. The fox did not say a word. "Well," the detective scoffed as he stuffed his hands in his pockets, "that was easy." "It would be for such a simpleton as yourself," Hiei barked. At the moment, he wanted nothing more than to snap the detective in half for trapping them in the first place. "What's that, Hiei," Yusuke retorted, an equally irritated intensity coating his words as well. A slight movement and a glint of light off of a reflective surface brought his attention to what lain behind the opposing human. Hiei scoffed. "I take it back," he grunted as he drew his weapon, "I gave you too much credit." With blinding speed that only he possessed, he leapt from his spot and rushed past his team to the battle site. With a quick flick of his wrist, the struggling golem fell, but this time into more pieces than the creature could regenerate. _Fools. _

With a heavy sigh, he moved to sheath his katana. He immediately stopped, however, when he noticed something, other than the obvious threat of drowning, wasn't quite right. His crimson eye's narrowed as he trained a harsh focus onto a single pebble- a piece of the golem, no doubt- on the concrete road. He stared hard, and frowned when his assumption was proven correct; the tiny rock was _vibrating._ Then, within seconds, several other pebbles and stones began to tremble all around him as well. Hiei felt a tingle shoot down his spine; this wasn't the golem coming back to life, it was something else, something far _worse_. His grimace lifted slightly at the corners in exited anticipation- it was a _challenge._ And it hit, this challenge, before he could think another thought- and it hit him _hard _the second he turned on the balls of his feet.

A brick wall, a tsunami, a wrecking ball- he wracked his brain for any analogy that could possibly describe the force that was _her_. Ensnared by the Jade inferno his soul had been trapped by the moment he turned, he found none. There was nothing he could think to compare the raging wildcat; he could only feel the intense excitement that poured out from his very core at the assault of her gleaming sword of light against his own katana. He parried her attack with visible effort and leapt back; she mirrored him.

The world fell away in an instant. At that moment, facing his truest wish- _a challenge_ worthy to test his strength- he could care less about what went on around him. The sea could crash down on the entire city and devour every single thing, be it living or already long gone from the world, he didn't care- nothing else mattered. As if the motions were habit, he discarded the dark cloak he'd adorned for so long and shifted his body into the stance of a true warrior. The girl across from him- his opponent- mirrored him; her stance shifted as well, but her pose suggested more of a calculating, calm style of fighting. The corners of his lips twitched upward as a chuckle fell from the fleshy appendages. Fire burst from his heart as it struggled to keep up with his racing need to move, to fight. The blonde before him chuckled playfully; her calculating stare wavered and he knew instantly something he never should have none.

Hiei rushed forward with all of his speed.

And just as he'd predicted, she moved just as he'd expected. Her calculating front was just that; it was a persona, and a false on at that. The jade-eyed fighter never was one for plans; in fact, he couldn't remember a single instance when any of her plans actually being motioned. She was unpredictable; the only thing that an opponent could be assured of is that she _is _unpredictable.

The sound of clashing metal sent a shiver down the line of his spine.

The blond smirked coyly, her body language practically screaming her love of battle as she countered his jab by blocking with her sword. Her attitude was contagious; he felt something he'd never felt before- joy. He ducked just as she swung a well-aimed sword lunge towards his skull. In a split second, he fell to the ground and sweep one foot out in attempt to trip his opponent. The girl, however, foresaw the motion and dodged by jumping over the protrusive limb. Predictable. His grin widened into the ghost of a smile as he took his chance; he slid forward at an angle to slice across her open abdomen. With speed that rivaled his own, she kicked off the ground and launched into a series of back flips to narrowly escape the fatal blow. Her long black skirt fluttered as she moved and added a mystical elegance to her already paradoxal existence. Once she'd sprung back into a stand, he charged, this time aiming for neck.

She never hesitated. Her sword, as if it were an extension of her body, moved at her will to block the attack. His crimson orbs lifted to hers; his smile disappeared. Her eyes always were the window to her soul; and in them now, he found his only assurance. He tried to back away immediately, but found that he couldn't. His eyes shot down to their interlocked blades- they were at a stalemate; neither could move without both of their weapons being dislodged from their hands. His attention flew to her eyes to find a glimmer of devious mischief. She _wouldn't_, he'd thought.

The blonde head butted him the second he lost focus. His first reaction was to lose his grip as one hand flew to aid his bleeding forehead. The second he did, he'd lost. Both of their swords shot across the battlefield. His eyes widened. He turned his head just in time to meet her fist. Unpredictable.

Her assualt ceased the second his eyes closed and his head collided with the ground.

When he opened them, he found the girl crouched over him with neither a single drop of sweat adorning her body nor a pant upon her breath; she was just a worried girl- one who possessed the rarest of fires within her soul. She offered her hand as she mustered up an amused, albeit worried bit of a smile. Ignoring the small voice of his own mind humming through his veins, he grasped her hand tightly and used the appendage to pry himself from the ground. "Your unpredictably proceeds you, _Lily_." It was no longer Hiei, he realized too late; it was no longer _Hiei _controlling this body or the foreign words falling from his lips, "It would seem that it has become clear that your way of thinking is far too irrational for your opponents to predict." The blonde with jade eyes turned away from him to pick up their discarded swords. "Perhaps it's not my way of thinking that makes me irrational, _Adei_. Perhaps it's my opponents inability to think outside of what is rational that makes me appear like _I_ am the irrational one."

The happening was like evaporation, Hiei thought detachedly. He was the water that had fallen from the sky of a different time and place and it was here that the droplets collected to form his corporeal form. Then, as was the fate for every cluster of water molecules, the sun- or in this case, this opposing force- shone down with magnificent light onto the water, illuminating every drop with the perfection that resided behind a falsehood of translucency. Basking in the warmth of a temporary sun, the droplet met its fate. In the sweltering heat, the water transforms into vapor-invisible and powerless- grasping blindly for the sun that had ensnared it. Hiei felt like that, too, in that instant. He felt as if he'd become a ghostly spectator watching another take his destined place. Like vapor, all he could was wait and watch, envying the warmth of the sun and wishing nothing more than to bask in its presence at least once more.

Hiei grimaced as he struggled to separate the thoughts rushing through his cranium like a hurricane; at a pace that was far from being quick enough, every neuron in his brain fired up to sort from his own thoughts from the ones that were produced by a foreign mind. Opening the eyes he'd not remembered closing, the crimson orbs rapidly darted from object to object until he found what he was looking for- _him_.

The body-snatcher stood before him. Slowly, he watched only a ghost from the side with aggravated patience as he watched his own face distort into a face he could no longer recognize. His body, like a growing dandelion, stretched upward to startling heights. The shape of his hair shifted slightly and fell, drooping into the new character's eyes to create shadowing bangs. Under these pieces of hair, he confronted two mirrored rubies, but his aggression was not matched. Instead, his challenge was ignored, for his eyes were watching _her._

Hiei felt sickened as he watched those haunting crimson eyes. The rubies were cold, hardened by the cruelties of loneliness and the harshness of the world. Anger, hate, disgust- all emotions reigned in the fiery orbs; even the whispered word- _forsaken_- could be heard, shouted from those eyes. Yet, as this man continued to stare only at her, all of those emotions began to change.

Those crimson eyes were defeated, a feat he'd tested many a time and failed. Emotions that had been bottled up for centuries-and existed even longer, all began to melt away, as if a pitiful creature had just found a meaning for its existence. His own orbs followed the colossus beast man's line of vision to find the light at the end of the tunnel. Her human soul and those demon eyes filled with bad intentions had met. Then, like someone he knew so well, the girl winked and lifted her hand to form a well-known hand gesture. Hiei had scoffed, but after a moment passed, he realized that the edges of his lips had risen. He frowned immediately upon the revelation. His attention drifted back to mysterious man who'd stolen his fight. His eyes, now, were gold. Hiei glared into the frog-like eyes as the wind carried the man's scent in his direction. The man was definitely a demon. His eyes narrowed, _a forbidden species of demon._

Without the ability to move away, Hiei was forced to watch as the forbidden demon stalked closer to the foolish woman. He cursed his inability; _he _was the one who was meant to fight, not this stranger! But the shaggy-haired, tomboy blonde would never know that, just as she did not know that she was about to meet fate at the hands of a demon. But then, he thought, perhaps he could learn from this battle, learn how great of a challenge this woman really was.

But it was not a demon that greeted that woman. It was a man. Disgust and loathing burned in Hiei's blood as the so-called demon embraced the blonde, his lover. He understood then- why the demon's eyes had changed. He wasn't like Hiei, like he'd thought; he wasn't a fighter fueled by hate and vengeance. He was more like the idiot human on his team, Kuwabara; he was compelled by his "feelings". It was this human emotion called "love" that had changed him. Hiei scoffed, no longer interested in a fight of fools. But, to his surprise, his focus could not stray long. The clashing of metal caught his ears and his entire attention span shifted to the fighting duo.

Hiei's eyes widened in awe as the two fighters danced across the battlefield with a grace and force he'd rarely seen. Within him, he felt his excitement soar. Perhaps, this was a challenge after all! He found himself in a confusing paradox; light danced across the fighter's faces. Anyone could see that a force was driving them, yet it was their bond that fueled them. How could such fools be so strong? How was it that their greatest weakness, "love", was also their greatest strength? His eyes fell upon the female warrior. How was it that such a weak creature, a human girl, contained such a great power- the affinity to sway a demon's heart? In the silence of his calming mind, he wandered vaguely as to who this powerful creature truly was.

_Her name was Jade. _The voice was not his own.

Hiei's head whipped to the side to find that he was no longer alone.

The transparent body of the demon man stood not two feet away. His eyes, like the corporeal man, were watching her. Hiei glanced at the man, and then chanced a peek at the one who'd captured his interests. When he had turned, he found himself back upon the beach of ruins.

"Her name was Jade," he spoke, this time aloud rather than in the fire demon's mind. Seeing as all he had for company on the abandoned shore was another ghost, he naturally did what he did best. He glared, but otherwise stayed silent. The demon man with the eyes of a frog, however, took no notice of his companion's foul mood and could only stare out into the vast waters of the ocean, searching for something he knew was no longer there. Both remained in silence as the sea towered over them and swallowed the world around them inch by every inch.

"_When the ocean cries_," the demon whispered softly as his body loosened from its rigid state, "_the memories will live on._" A soft twitch of something resembling a smile breeched the stony persona he'd always worn. Light from inside the man shimmered in his eyes as the orbs themselves gazed affectionately to the sea. "What happened here?" Hiei questioned after a moment of silence. He would never admit it, but the cause of the destruction of so many lives had piqued his curiosity. Staring into the fierce nature of the ocean, he knew _how_ it had happened- a tsunami- but he couldn't help but feel that something else had happened to this place, something far greater than a happenance of nature.

The man beside him produced a cross between a growl and a chuckle. Out of the corner of his eye, Hiei caught the fading of the apparition's body; if he'd noticed, he didn't make a sign of acknowledgement. "She was a detective, first," he spoke, ignoring the fire demon's request. "She was human, second. She was always like that, I suppose." His eyebrows furrowed as if he were struggling to find his memories in the sea. "That was her downfall and her greatest strength in the end." The wind picked up as the ruined city began to traverse back in time; as it had the moment he arrived, the ruins reconstructed themselves and screams and shouts once again filled the air. Yet, just as it had been when they arrived, there were no people.

Something danced across the pavement beside him. Tense, Hiei unsheathed his sword in record time and swung around to confront the foe. Nothing was there.

"Shadows," the demon replied without so much as a glance, "that is what happened here. That is what we were to become, _shadows_." The small lift of his lips widened as his eyes glittered. "All but her. In the land of shadow, she is the ocean- fierce, endless, and darker and deeper than the depths we see from the surface." Upon his words, the sky grew dark and the waves of the waters grew taller and fiercer. The tall man turned to face Hiei, "_Save her, save us all_." Hiei stared into the soul of the man, and scoffed. It wasn't his responsibility to save a human, nor was it in his interest. He had only himself, and he would make sure that all he had would be what he fought to save. Towers of water crashed down upon them, seemingly from the sky, and demolished one building after the other, enticing scream after bloody scream as the force consumed the figureless victims. The demon, however, grinned as if at peace surrounded by the chaos of millions of gallons of water surrounding him, ready to swallow him whole.

"You fool!" Hiei growled as he struggled in his form to grab hold of a nearby lamppost as the water swept the streets lightly. The true waves followed closely at the first waves' heels. The man did not move from the road so close to the beach. He only stood still as if each lash of the ocean waters were a caress of a loved one. "_Save her_," he reminded Hiei, his head shifting in the direction of a smashed building. Following his line of vision, he caught the glimmer of something shiny wedged into the ruins. The wall of water arrived and hung above the demon's head. Hiei's eyes grew wide as he stared death in the face; the demon could only continue to grin, as if the ocean were embracing him, protecting him from the world around him. The fury of water crashed down upon them and Hiei's world went black.


End file.
